Philadelphia Real Estate Blog

2101 Market Street in Center City Philadelphia

Towering 42 stories tall is arguable one of Philadelphia’s most striking additions to the Center City condominium building set-The Murano Condominium building. Offering stunning views in all directions, the Murano Philadelphia offers one, two, and three bedroom condo units with a maximum of seven units per floor, in the 19103 zip code. According to the website, www.TheMuranoCondominium.com, you will find a 6th floor swimming pool, along with inside and outside common deck areas in which to relax. I recently visited the open house, and can attest to the impressive modern finishes, unique floor plans, and wonderful city views.  On-site parking available, along with 24 hour concierge, and a ten year tax abatement, set into the high rise business district of downtown Philadelphia makes the Murano Condominiums a great option in Center City condominium living!

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

I just saw one of the neatest innovations in painting that can save you a bungle of time, energy, and money. Huge secret here…it is called Behr.com. Behr is a paint company that has developed this online service in which you can pay $4.95, and upload a photo of any particular room in your new Rittenhouse Square condominium, or Old City flat. Then you simply click through their 3700 plus paint colors, to see how that room would look in any of those colors. From eggplant, to a nice sage green, this service is the ultimate “try before you buy” idea, and I think many first time buyers/painters could benefit from such a service.

How Fabulous! If you have painted any room in your Society Hill condo in the past, you know as well as I do how easy it is to “miss” the color you were going for. Even by a little bit, a soft yellow can appear just awful- perhaps the yellow you picked is a little bold, has too much green mixed in, or is just wrong for the  lighting you have in any given room. This service is going to allow you to see the entire color, on a larger wall surface of any given room you choose, to make sure the color is right for that particular room.

And you know as well as I do, that paint cans have a tendency to gather in your closets or storage areas of your Philadelphia condo, and can generally outlive human beings in general. Just think of how many paint cans you WON’T have lingering for decades in that dark corner of your basement storage area! And believe me, this way of “painting a room” is a lot easier to do while downing a Martini or two.  Painting and drinking can now go hand in hand! Yippee!

Give it a try, and see if you don’t agree!

Looking for an easier way to buy your future condo in Philadelphia? Give Mark Wade a call at 215.521.1523 and let him show you a few condos here in Center City.

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

As a longtime Philadelphia realtor, I am often asked a number of questions about various condos in Philly, and I want my blog readers to know a few things about buying or selling real estate in Philadelphia.

1) The “Days on Market” figure on any mls sheet (“DOM”) may be misleading. Sometimes sellers will pull their condo off the market for a few days, in hopes of resetting that “DOM” figure. Easily overridden by a realtor. Simply hitting the “History” button associated with that particular listing on the internet will give you a clear picture of the MLS history of that (say) Rittenhouse Square condo. So make sure you ask your realtor to show you the history of any given listing.

2) As I have said in prior blog entries and podcasts, make sure you measure the Center City condo you are going to buy to get your own idea of the square footage. Many MLS sheet omit this figure altogether, and are realtors are not required to submit such info to the MLS.

3) Parking- deeded, or assigned? Again, I did an entire blog on this issue. Many realtors will use those definitions incorrectly. Deeded means you have a separate tax bill, and you can sell the space off to anyone. Assigned generally means that the spot transfers with your title, which is not a bad thing.

4) Claims of a property being Historically Certified. Best story ever- once a prominent Center City realtor sold a Society Hill home, and claimed it was historically certified. Without being able to substantiate such a claim, when pressed, she declared the home to be “historically certifiable”. Nice. If such claims are made to you, get it in writing. Ask for documentation when writing the offer, should such a designation be of value to you.

So there you have it. If you are looking for more insight into the Philadelphia Center City condo market, give me a call at 215.521.1523 or drop me an email at Mark@CenterCity.com. I will be sure to fill you in on the information I have in my brain!

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

Adding faux painted exposed brick to a living room can be easy, quick, inexpensive, and add quite a punch to any living area….especially a somewhat boring room where some wall texture gets immediately noticed. Wall texture adds depth, and can change how light “works” in any given room. And heaven knows that a lot of Philadelphia condos could use a tad more emotional punch!

I once bought a condo that had a 5’ by 7’ chunk taken out of an exposed brick wall. I simply filled empty chunk with cinder block, applied a thin wire lathe, then semi-wet mortar mix, and scarred it to make it appear to be exposed brick. I then painted the entire wall a really cool taupe color, and you could never tell that it was faux Painted brick…and it Looked Stunning!

I should have done the wall in a medium grey color. My friend once did that to his Old City condo, to a few exposed brick columns, and I thought I was going to die. It was gorgeous!

So the moral of this blog entry is…don’t worry if your Rittenhouse Square condominium, or any condo in Philadelphia lacks a bit of charm and historic detail. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and add detail is indeed possible as you go about improving your Center City loft or Society Hill condo. Have fun, and be creative!

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

As the owner and operator of www.CenterCityCondos.com, I am always appreciative when someone comes to me with feedback about my site. Nine times out of ten, someone is saying nice things.

But I wonder how many people leave my site, with a bitter review that perhaps they are not sharing with me. With the help of my website designers, I came up with the ideas for the layout, menu, and content. I have added a blog and a place to listen to my podcasts. But what if a lot of what I am doing, truly sucks…and I don’t know it?!

That is where I would like EVERYONE to know that I am open to criticism. If there is something that you think could be improved, refined, added, deleted, fixed, shortened, sweetened, or altogether altered, won’t you please drop me a note, and let me know?

I average over 5000 visits to my site per month, and the average length of each visit exceeds 4 minutes! And there is just no way everyone is leaving happy and fulfilled…

If you like, take a minute, and let me know what you think. Believe it or not, the more feedback I get, the more I want to do my corny “happy dance”…

 
Thanks so much for your continued support!

Mark Wade 
www.CenterCityCondos.com 
Prudential Fox and Roach Realtors
530 Walnut St. Suite 260 Philadelphia, Pa. 19106

As a Philadelphia realtor for the past twenty years, my livelihood depends on my ability to navigate the streets, and be the ambassador of good will to those looking to move to our fair city. Not easy to do when I am cussing up a storm at “this idiot” or “that dumbass” who seems to believe that there are no parking rules, or etiquette in terms of driving in our fair town.  If I were in charge of this city, here is what I would do on my first HOUR on the job, in order to improve the quality of life for those of us who live here in beautiful Center City Philadelphia:

1) Corner of 5th and Market. Try turning left onto 5th from Market…Good Luck-traffic is backed up to 8th street on a busy day during rush hour. And restrict ALL parking within a block of that intersection at ALL times.

2) Restrict the double parking on Market Street between 3rd and 4th. Morons.

3) Cut the red light duration (length of time) on N. 19th St. at Vine. Possible good time to check your voicemail at work though. And return all the calls.

4) Provide MORE loading zones around town. Enforce time limits more effectively.

5) Time lighting sequence of red/green lights all the way along Callowhill. Though still the fastest way to get from the east to the west side of town currently.

6) Ticket the tour buses who feel that it is OK to idle for hours in any given street – turning a two lane street into a clogged, one lane pile of waiting cars.

7) Either tow ALL the cars after 3:30 on Walnut from 4th-23rd, or take the signs down – It is pointless if cars are allowed to idle in that lane. Or at least have a traffic cop shoo folks away.

8) Actually enforce the “NO parking” in the median of Broad St. here in Center City.

9) Turn Bainbridge traffic in the opposite direction, and have it head west, not east.

Feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email at Mark@CenterCity.com and let me know if there are any other traffic nightmares around here I might have missed or just let me know what you think of the ideas that I have mentioned above….or if you think we are all better off just walking around in this City of ours which has been ranked 5th in Walkability nationwide!!  

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

Wouldn’t it be a good idea of the architects of many of the Center City condo projects here in town, consulted an experienced Philadelphia condominium specialist, when laying out the floor plans for their new Center City condo project?

I have seen some screwy ideas that have been implemented in the Philly condo market, and many of buyers are like….”what the hell?? ”   For example, one prominent building, which I think quite highly of, has the exact kitchen in the studio, as they do the jumbo penthouse units. This kitchen is ample for the penthouse, but takes up about 55% of the living area of the studio. 

 
Way to think things out, Columbo.  Studio units target 22 year olds (on the whole). I don’t know a 22 year old that owns more than two pans, a cookie sheet, and a measuring cup. So this huge kitchen detracts from the value of this particular Center City condo unit. 

Next up is a personal favorite, the popular $700,000 two bedroom Philly skyscraper unit (roughly 1250 sq ft) with no closet space. If my buyers can afford the unit, they are not interested in stuffing their Prada in an armoire.  It appears that if I compare/contrast the various floor plans of many new Philadelphia condos, I find an excessive amount of square footage used for hallways.

 Hallway space can easily be converted to walk-in closet space, with minor adjustments to floor plan, or “flow” of the unit. My buyers will tell you to shove the hallway, and give them a good walk-in closet or two!    

The point of this post is to always remember to give the buyers what they want. And who would know better about what specific buyers want, than an experienced realtor?

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

To all the Philadelphia Open House Junkies: You are indeed welcome to visit my open house. I don’t care. Really…the more the merrier. And I promise not to hound you, ask for your name, your number, you place of birth, etc etc. I will not call you the next day to “follow up’, and I will not stalk you, at some later date, to see if you want to sell your condo.

I sometimes get bored sitting waiting for the next potential buyer to walk in the door of any given open house, and fall madly in love (with the condo I am sitting).  So feel free to come over, sign in under a ficticious name (Yoko Ono?) and have a look around. Just a few things I ask of you:

1) If you see me talking to a “real buyer”, please do not interrupt

2) Excuse yourself from our little chat if you see other buyers come through the door. Remember, I am at work

3) Do not voice negative comments about the home in which you are visiting

And that is about it. I too love to visit open houses, always have, and always will I guess. Perhaps it is in the genes. Maybe I am just nosey, and I love to see how other people live. So if you are like me, you are welcome as a guest into my open house and I hope to see you knocking at the door to one my many new condos in Philadelphia that has just been listed!

Our Open Houses for this Sunday July 20 are:

753 Marvine                  11 N. 2nd #102        1010 Race PHH        104 Market #201

11:30AM-1PM               Noon-1 PM                 1:30PM-2:30PM        Noon-1PM

We hope to see you there!!!

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

As a longtime realtor in Center City, I am often confronted with conflicting information given to me by other realtors, information on fact sheet or various sources of information on the internet.

One of the most common variables I come across is the difference is square footage calculations or claims. And I think it is important to ask yourself where this information is coming from – the seller, the seller’s appraiser, your appraiser, the realtor, city hall, the developer, your own measurements, or perhaps the man on the moon?

Since you might come up with nine different calculations of square footage, I would suggest that the best source would be from your own measurements. And know that variables do come into play here:
Is the square footage advertised for say a Rittenhouse Square condominium including staircases? Closets?
Does it include the deck or the patio of any given Old City loft?

Do the measurements go from “outside of drywall to outside of drywall”, or is the calculation coming from exterior wall to exterior wall of your Philadelphia condo?

You can always go to online to check city records. That information is usually garnered from the architectures renderings when the project was developed/converted into condos in Philadelphia.
Looking to get a good measure of the Center City real estate market? Give Mark Wade a call for all your real estate needs!

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106

Though I sometimes sit at my Sunday open houses here in Philadelphia, I do so sometimes with a slight effect from being out with my friends from the previous (Saturday) night. I am tired, and sometimes sit in a chair for the entire duration of any given Open House. Thank goodness our Center City Sunday Open House shift only last an hour. I think I might go nuts otherwise.

But there are a few things that brighten my morning, like showing up five minutes early to my (say) Rittenhouse Square condo Open House, and see potential buyers waiting for me. Or be blessed with sellers who have turned on every light, adjusted the thermostat appropriately, and even perhaps lit a candle in order to bring some life into the condo. Nothing kills the “likeability” of your Old City condo like 98 degree heat inside the unit I am about to introduce to perspective buyers. And kitty puke on the kitchen floor…eh, no. Ditto for doggie doo piles on the patio. And for heaven sake…make the bed. Clean the bathtub, and pick your crap up off the floor of the walk-in closet. NO POTENTIAL BUYER GROWS UP WANTING TO INHERIT YOUR LIFESTYLE, should your lifestyle be easily equated to that of say a 19 year old fraternity dude. Dude.

And buyers, this blog entry is aimed at you too. Keep your dog at home, and don’t show up ten minutes AFTER my open house has ended, expecting a 25 minute tour. (Please, that is 🙂 ). And if you are just browsing, and saw the sign out front, give me some time with the “real” buyers who may have come specifically for this home. Your presence is welcome. Your monopolization of my time…perhaps not so much.

So my conclusion is that sellers and buyers need to put on a good show to be taken seriously. And buying a condo in Philadelphia is a serious consideration, and a thought for which one should prepare. Put your best foot forward, and happy buying and selling!

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Suite 260 Philadelphia, PA 19106